Streaming media technology refers to a technology that releases audios, videos and other multimedia contents in real-time in the form of data streams on the internet. The server compresses and codes the entire multimedia file into multiple compressed packages, and sequentially sends them in real time to the client; and the client is enabled to decompress and play the sent packages while downloading the rest packages to save time. Currently, a server side is capable of making one multimedia file into content segments in different editions and with different bitrates for the client to choose according to the actual condition. For example, in case of a low-bandwidth internet environment, a video stream with a low bitrate can be chosen; in case of a high-bandwidth internet environment, a video stream with a high bitrate can be chosen; and while in case of a variable-bandwidth internet environment, a video stream with a variable bitrate can be chosen. In a wireless network where air-interface resources keep changing, the bitrate of the streaming media shall be adapted according to the changes in air-interface resources, for the sake of more rational utilization rate of air-interface resources and better user experience.
With respect to the issue of bitrate adaption in the wireless network, in self-adaptive HTTP (Hyper Text Transfer Protocol, hyper text transfer protocol) streaming media protocol Adaptive HTTP Streaming of a 3GPP (the 3rd Generation Partnership Project, the 3rd generation partnership project), the processing method for HTTP streaming media includes: the client needs to perform bandwidth detection prior to requesting for each content segment, for instance, carries out the bandwidth detection based on the occupation condition of its buffer (buffer). The more the buffer is occupied, the better condition the bandwidth is in, and the more the bandwidth is available; and then the client selects an appropriate bitrate based on the available bandwidth and sends a request to the server. At the meantime, the HTTP streaming media adopts an HTTP request/response (request/response) mode, namely, a content segment is required to be responded for each request.
However, it seems one-sided and not real-time for the client to determine the network bandwidth based only on its buffer condition. For example, if the network of a cell is congested already but the client's buffer is fully occupied, the client may consider that the network bandwidth is sufficient at that time, thereby applying for files with a higher bitrate, which may cause more serious congestions.